Beginings
by Petite Madame des Chats
Summary: ONESHOT Nobody saw it coming, but it came anyway, unconcerned by the lack of forewarning. Roy ponders how a revolution has changed Edward Elric.


Warning - not particularly well edited, because it is very late in the morning, and I am going to bed very soon. I appologise if this offends anyone. Also, **_SHONEN-AI._** I figured I ought to warn you all. Oh, and there are mentions of sex, but nothing graphic. Probably undeserving of the rating, but I decided better safe than sorry.

Anyway, this is set sometime after the series, and ignores the movie, 'cause I haven't seen it. A slightly differnt style to that I normally write. Also, it might be continued in the form of a FMA/HP crossover, but if so, it will be somewhat more tasteful (and plotful) than the average crossover, without the clichéd elements, if I can avoid them. So, enjoy! (or not!)

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Nobody saw it coming, but it came anyway, unconcerned by the lack of forewarning.

It began in Drachma. At first, it was minor, just a few skirmishes for the border guard, against ill-equipped, untrained revolutionaries. Then it moved to Crete, and the border there was attacked similarly. Nobody thought much of it, there were always people who thought they could change the world, and two at once wasn't really an issue, Amestris being so powerful. But all that began to change. Gradually, the revolutionaries got smarter, and they got themselves better weapons.

It wasn't until an entire platoon was wiped out that the upper echelons decided something had to be done. So they sent out a bunch of green soldiers, barely out of training. A thousand men went, and in a week there was only two hundred left. The revolution had alchemists.

That, of course, sent a wave of panic through the nation. These puny little ants weren't quite so puny, were somehow more poisonous, now they had an alchemist. Often, Roy would wonder why they had been so scared. Their alchemist was old, and not particularly smart, nor resourceful. It had been sheer dumb luck that he had been able to kill the eight hundred he did – the officers had been as green as their subordinates, and set up camp under a cliff. After all, rock doesn't particularly mind when someone helps it answer gravity's call.

The real troops were sent out then, including Roy's unit. He and Armstrong had shared more than just one bottle of port as they tried to find some way to get the Elric brother's out of it. They tried so damn hard, and there was no way out of it.

When they had confronted the brother's both seemed resigned. But, the Elrics had figured out a way to keep Alphonse as safe as possible. The military wasn't ready to let him go, and all involved knew that if the younger brother tried to pull out now, Edward would be given the most dangerous assignment they could give him. So Alphonse Elric went to the refugee camps, as the only alchemist assigned to civilian aid. Edward Elric, however, went to the front lines.

Wartime changed the way the military worked. Roy was still a Colonel, but he was also an alchemist, and so he was also under the command of all other officers who called on him as an alchemist.

That was the downside to the instant promotion to the position of major that came with being a State Alchemist. You were considered an independent unit, or weapon, and expected to follow orders accordingly.

They were out there for a month, maybe more, maybe less, Roy could never really remember, before anything happened. It was just a skirmish, ten or so men who snuck into a camp and got caught. But it was how they were dealt with that was the issue. Edward had been the one to catch them, creating stone hands to hold them off the ground.

The commanding officer had congratulated the blonde on the capture, then ordered them killed. Or, to be more specific, Edward was ordered to kill them.

It had broken something in the genius, who had been very different from that day. The temper tantrums, the arrogance, and the red jacket had all disappeared, leaving behind an Edward who was still the same child genius, the same stubborn, overprotective, vindictive older brother, but a subdued genius, and quieter, more mature brother.

It had broken Alphonse when they got to meet, briefly, as Alphonse escorted a refugee group from one encampment to the next. He had passed the news onto Izumi Curtis, who sent a rather angry letter to Edward, explaining the finer points of exactly how she was going to tear him apart if he didn't stop worrying Alphonse. Of course, this was intended to prompt an angry reply, though it didn't. Edward replied to tell her that her logic was sound, and that he appreciated her advice.

Edward was never the same again after that, Roy knew, and in some ways appreciated, though he did wish that growing up had not needed to be so painful for the older Elric.

Not even six months had passed before the whole issue was solved. Their opposition died out, literally, being slaughtered at the hands of the Amestris' Army. Eventually, one of them revealed all the vital information needed to wrap it all up, and the ringleaders were hanged.

Edward had killed seventy-nine adults and two teenagers by then, and had barely flinched when he was asked to perform the executions. Roy remembered one thing in particular from that day, and that was the way Edward had been like stone through the whole day. Even as the damned revolutionaries breathed their last, his face was unmoved.

Roy had followed him home that night. Alphonse had been there for a little, but he left, claiming to have a check-up with Winry scheduled. His auto-mail, a mirror image of Edward's was in perfect condition, which led Roy to believe the younger brother knew just what was going on, even when Roy himself didn't.

They talked for hours, and while Roy worked his way through three glasses of whiskey, Edward stuck to one. At about eleven that evening, they had abandoned the alcohol, and simply talked. It wasn't until sometime past one that Edward had broken down. Somehow, he ended up with his face in Roy's lap, kneeling beside the couch Roy sat on.

Sobs racked his too thin body, shoulder's heaving, gasping for breath, as he finally let go of whatever it was that made him keep the trauma locked inside.

Learning to kill was not hard, the blonde had said. It was learning to cope with killing that was hard. The constant wondering – did he have a family? A sister? A brother? A wife, kids, friends, people who will mourn his passing? – tears a person apart from the inside out.

Edward had cried for a very long time. Roy didn't know how long, he just held close the delicate soul that Alphonse had entrusted him with. When the younger had stopped crying, he had simply stayed put, curled up in Roy's lap, where he had somehow ended up. When he finally looked up, he was just inches from Roy's face, and his eyes...his eyes were a dark burnished gold, begging him.

Silently, he begged Roy, and Roy acquiesced. Very gently, very softly, he pressed his lips against Edward's, and was rewarded by two arms sliding around his neck.

Roy never really knew how to describe it. They hadn't made love, had sex, and it certainly wasn't as meaningless as a fuck. It wasn't gentle, or soft, or romantic, but there was nothing rough about it.

Surreal was probably the only word that even came close, but it hadn't really been surreal. It had been very real, and even the memory was still clearly etched into his memory.

But now Edward treated him as the Colonel again, albeit with more patience and maturity. Sometimes, Roy wondered if Edward had forgotten that night.

But he knew better, because sometimes, Edward's eyes were that same burnished shade of gold, and they held that same plaintive note of despair, and Roy would gladly start that first night all over again. Not for the pleasure he gained from it, but for the relief that filled those gold eyes when he kissed their owner, for the simple smile that Edward wore to thank him as he left the next day, and for the knowledge that Edward would sleep peacefully in his bed, if only for one night.

It was the least Roy could do.


End file.
